Brexit Consequences

[Bird on a Fire]

I subscribe to Vida Rural, basically Portugal's farmers' weekly.

The sector is quite worried about a perceived lack of preparation from British authorities on the new phytosanitary regulations, which is delaying their own preparations (expected to be costly).

Autotranslate, so a bit clunky:

The Confederation of Farmers of Portugal ( CAP ) warned of the lack of preparation of the British Government and of the possible need for green corridors, in the context of the entry into full operation of customs and phytosanitary controls in the United Kingdom, advances the Eco portal .

"We are apprehensive and attentive as to the moment when the rules within the scope of customs and phytosanitary controls come into full operation and as to the responsiveness of the competent British authorities and even our administration, given the volume of requirements that are now required" , declared the secretary general of CAP, Luís Mira, in response to Lusa . For the confederation, the “several postponements” of the application of control measures are “symptomatic of this lack of preparation”.

The official also underlined that any change has consequences in terms of costs, compliance with contractual deadlines and quantity of products, aspects that are “particularly relevant” in the case of agriculture.

The UK keeps kicking the can down the road:

The pre-notification requirement for agri-food imports, which should come into effect on October 1 of this year, will be introduced on January 1, 2022. border control takes effect on 1 July 2022, when it was scheduled to start in January of the same year. The declarations of protection and safety in imports become mandatory as of July 1, 2022, six months after the date that was scheduled.

And if the UK is going to be slow at this stuff, it's a safe bet Portugal will be slower. So expect more disruption to trade in (especially) fresh fruit and veg next year.

https://www-vidarural-pt.translate.goog ... tr_pto=nui

[Fishnut]

Fan-f.cking-tastic

[sheldrake]

It will be interesting to see what effect the new direct shipping route to Morocco will have on fruit and veg in UK supermarkets.

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/buying-and- ... 21.article

[Bird on a Fire]

It will be. It might take a while though. From your link:

United Seaways claimed the service would be “competitively priced” against the land route, despite the vessel likely returning empty to Morocco at least to begin with.

Fruit & vegetables make up the majority of Moroccan exports to the UK, though they remain a small fraction of those from the EU. British importers bought £180m of fresh produce from Morocco last year, compared with almost £1.8bn from Spain alone.

However, full border checks on EU imports that are set to begin in July threaten to “cause a level of disruption the industry hasn’t seen for generations,” said Fresh Produce Consortium CEO Nigel Jenney.

Ignoring the problem of the UK's balance of trade with North Africa, that's a huge amount of readjustment to be done. I doubt there's spare production in Morocco currently to replace a significant chunk of EU imports, though I've not seen figures.

As with the disruption to other supply chains, it seems that the UK Government's strategy is to accept a fair amount of disruption as the old ways break down, and then letting the market sort out what happens next.

[Cardinal Fang]

Aren't goods from Morocco subject to the same phytosanitary and health checks that goods coming in from the EU are soon to be?

CF

[sheldrake]

But changes to those checks don't have to be implemented any faster than we want to, for the purpose of import. Morocco is just another source of fruit and veg from a sunny climate.

I'm not sure why our balance of trade with North Africa is a 'problem'? If a country offers you good value, it makes sense to buy from them regardless of how much of our stuff they buy back.

[Bird on a Fire]

I think it suggests that the additional brexit delays have changed the economics of the route sufficiently for this new route to become economically viable.

And AIUI mainland UK can indeed do its own rules, but anything for re-export to NI becomes more complicated. We could split the supply chains down the Irish Sea of course.

[Little waster]

Funny story, from when I was in A&E the other week.

They wheeled a guy in who had just blown both of his feet off with a shotgun that he had just bought, while drunk, off some shady posh bloke in the pub.

They rushed him off to surgery leaving me to console his distraught wife.

So there we sat hour after hour as she went over and over the same ground:-

"Will he survive? ... Will he walk again? ... How will he work? ... Why did he do it? ... Will he go to prison? ...We live on the 10th floor of a block of flats in central Newcastle and he designs company brochures for a living, what was he even thinking? ... Why didn't he listen to me when I said it was a bad idea? ... Why didn't he take even the most basic of precautions to minimise the damage from outcomes that were blatantly obvious?" ... What are we going to do with the huge hole in the floor?"

... and so on and so on.

Eventually I had to just do the reasonable thing and say to her:-

"Look. Stop moaning about how your kitchen is now spattered with bl..dy chunks of toes, socks and sandals and how even if your husband survives he'll be badly maimed and you and him will now find life a lot harder due to some moronically stupid decision he insisted on following through with regardless of your perfectly-sensible and now fully justified misgivings. I know as we we speak that he's still bleeding out less than 20 yards away from us but really you need to move on and stop living in the past and it is frankly bizarre that you haven't already. So comb the toenail fragments out of your hair and start making the most of all the opportunities this major development must surely present to you. I mean just think ... you've got blue badges ... and ... better access to the toilet in the flat downstairs ... and blue badges ... and loads of other things ... probably ... did I mention blue badges?

At that point the ungrateful mare just began sobbing uncontrollably. There's really just no reasoning with some people!

Just then they called my name and I went in for treatment without as much as a backward glance.

Following several hours surgery they finally removed my head from my fundament after which I could get back to spouting racist nonsense at a couple dozen viewers on GB News and shilling dubious investment portfolios on Youtube.

[sheldrake]

I think it suggests that the additional brexit delays have changed the economics of the route sufficiently for this new route to become economically viable.

The 'additional brexit delays' haven't had much price effect, but opening up to non-EU fruit and veg is a downward pressure on prices.
Also ttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/29/e ... th-morocco

And AIUI mainland UK can indeed do its own rules, but anything for re-export to NI becomes more complicated. We could split the supply chains down the Irish Sea of course.

Or until article 16 is invoked, or a new deal reached.

[temptar]

Stop it all of you. There haven't been any valid GDP figures for any country for a year and a half.

In 2019 our GDP grew faster than Germany, Japan and Italy too.

I recall that being linked with stockpiling in case of a no deal though...

[Little waster]

The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 3.2% in the 12 months to August 2021, up from 2.0% to July. This is also the largest ever increase in the CPI 12-month inflation rate

Food and non-alcoholic beverages also made a large contribution to the change in the CPIH annual rate, increasing it by 0.09 percentage points to August 2021. This was mainly because of an accumulation of small predominantly upward contributions to change across the food basket

Shortages of supply chain staff and increased shipping costs ... are driving food price inflation

[sheldrake]

The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 3.2% in the 12 months to August 2021, up from 2.0% to July. This is also the largest ever increase in the CPI 12-month inflation rate

There are many forces driving inflation at present, not least of which is money printing. Inflation is also high (actually a bit higher) in Germany, for example https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Econo ... _node.html

The small delays added to lorries coming off a ferry won't have a significant price effect.

[sTeamTraen]

Yes, it is a fuzzy picture. My only original point on this is that I think Covid lockdowns are a much bigger factor in most people's daily experience (fuel shortages or not etc..) than Brexit.

I'm not in the UK: What aspect of Covid ("lockdowns" or otherwise) is still a big problem on a daily basis for most people? Someone (I think Laura Kuenssberg) said earlier today that Covid "is in the rearview mirror", which got a bit of pushback on Twitter since there are still 250,000 cases and close to 1,000 deaths per week, but there does seem to be a feeling that further lockdowns are unlikely (and so apart from anything else, the government will find it hard to blame Covid for labour shortages).

[sheldrake]

Yes, it is a fuzzy picture. My only original point on this is that I think Covid lockdowns are a much bigger factor in most people's daily experience (fuel shortages or not etc..) than Brexit.

I'm not in the UK: What aspect of Covid ("lockdowns" or otherwise) is still a big problem on a daily basis for most people? Someone (I think Laura Kuenssberg) said earlier today that Covid "is in the rearview mirror", which got a bit of pushback on Twitter since there are still 250,000 cases and close to 1,000 deaths per week, but there does seem to be a feeling that further lockdowns are unlikely (and so apart from anything else, the government will find it hard to blame Covid for labour shortages).

They have a lingering effect in the employment market, some of the supply chain effects are significant ripples from last year (e.g. there's still a chip shortage etc..) and there are still people being told to isolate via an NHS app.

[plodder]

We're not in lockdown and haven't been since "freedom day". Hardly anyone bothers to wear masks when in public places and people have kind of given up. We've had our jabs and we're back to normal.

[sheldrake]

We're not in lockdown and haven't been since "freedom day". Hardly anyone bothers to wear masks when in public places and people have kind of given up. We've had our jabs and we're back to normal.

Here's an example of an effect feeding through from last year
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-58801556

Here's an example of how it was still messing with us over summer
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58228466

[Bird on a Fire]

Yeah but over here in Europe we're mostly still using masks in places, Portugal has only just ended work from home, etc. I reckon EU economy and society is still being more nobbled by the panic.

[Bird on a Fire]

I'd say it's fairly plain that at least some of the issues in the UK are
A. Definitely happening (eg some localised shortages of food and fuel), and
B. Probably exacerbated by brexit. It's a contributory factor, even if "with covid" is also on the death certificate.

It's not clear to me exactly which bit sheldrake disagrees with. Can we have more light and less heat? (The gas price hikes might help with this)

[sheldrake]

I'd say it's fairly plain that at least some of the issues in the UK are
A. Definitely happening (eg some localised shortages of food and fuel), and
B. Probably exacerbated by brexit. It's a contributory factor, even if "with covid" is also on the death certificate.

It's not clear to me exactly which bit sheldrake disagrees with. Can we have more light and less heat? (The gas price hikes might help with this)

I doubt brexit has much effect, because

a) given the proportion of drivers who actually came from the EU (already posted) and how that proportion had actually increased since we voted out (also posted).

b) The biggest driver shortage is currently in Poland, and it's pretty big in Germany

I would describe this as triggered by a reckless haulage industry negotiating tactic, on a background of Covid, with brexit as a possible minor factor.

I honestly think the only reason this thread has dwealt on it so long though, is because people really are looking for something they can say 'aha, told you so!' about brexit because so many of the lurid predictions have already been proven wrong.

It's time people moved on from that and started thinking about the better kind of society they can carve out using the new political independence as an opportunity instead of being gloomy about something that didn't go their way five years ago. All that will happen if you do that is the Tories will get to define that future. Even Starmer shows glimmers of grasping this, for all his other faults.

[lpm]

Whoever it was who said Brexit is a co-morbidity got it spot on, IMO.

[Bird on a Fire]

Standing on the shoulders of giants.

[Bird on a Fire]

I'd say it's fairly plain that at least some of the issues in the UK are
A. Definitely happening (eg some localised shortages of food and fuel), and
B. Probably exacerbated by brexit. It's a contributory factor, even if "with covid" is also on the death certificate.

It's not clear to me exactly which bit sheldrake disagrees with. Can we have more light and less heat? (The gas price hikes might help with this)

I doubt brexit has much effect, because

a) given the proportion of drivers who actually came from the EU (already posted) and how that proportion had actually increased since we voted out (also posted).

b) The biggest driver shortage is currently in Poland, and it's pretty big in Germany

I would describe this as triggered by a reckless haulage industry negotiating tactic, on a background of Covid, with brexit as a possible minor factor.

I honestly think the only reason this thread has dwealt on it so long though, is because people really are looking for something they can say 'aha, told you so!' about brexit because so many of the lurid predictions have already been proven wrong.

It's time people moved on from that and started thinking about the better kind of society they can carve out using the new political independence as an opportunity instead of being gloomy about something that didn't go their way five years ago. All that will happen if you do that is the Tories will get to define that future. Even Starmer shows glimmers of grasping this, for all his other faults.

I'm sorry, but this is getting silly.

Anyone continuing with Monty python references will be permabanned.

[Bird on a Fire]

Whoever it was who said Brexit is a co-morbidity got it spot on, IMO.

It's Nobel-worthy, really.

[sheldrake]

I'm sorry, but this is getting silly.

I don't understand your non-argument.

[Bird on a Fire]

Have you tried meditation?

Sometimes it's just really freeing to have some space between your thoughts.